In May, an outbreak of the Ebola virus was officially declared in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aid groups are warning that it could become the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.

On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with two experts about why this outbreak is uniquely concerning, what the global health community needs to do to respond effectively, and how U.S. international aid policy under the Trump Administration has affected the trajectory of this public health crisis.

The United States knows how to defeat Ebola. A dozen years of bipartisan investment — spanning three administrations and billions of dollars — have built a formidable infrastructure of expertise, countermeasures, and rapid-response capability

Convening under the shadow of the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a real-time reminder of what’s at stake. The message from the outset was sobering. Without proper plans for prevention, countries continue a cycle of panic, scrambling for resources only after a crisis hits.

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Doctors treating Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the symptoms may be milder than in previous outbreaks of the disease

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, highlighted the disastrous impact that the Trump Administration’s dismantling of USAID programs has had on the fight against Ebola.

Not long after Dr. Craig Spencer called a hotline from his New York City apartment to report that he had Ebola symptoms, an ambulance arrived outside his building full of health workers wearing full biohazard suits.

Spencer, 33 at the time, lived on the fifth floor and was recently back from treating Ebola patients in the West African nation of Guinea. For some reason, he wasn’t able to buzz in the responders, but his situation was considered so urgent that the team immediately removed the building's front door and came upstairs.

Infectious disease experts say measles — not Ebola or hantavirus — is the biggest infectious threat to the mega-events that will be held in the Unites States this summer.

Ahead of the World Cup and America's 250th anniversary celebrations, experts warned that the highly contagious measles virus could spread during massive international gatherings in jam-packed stadiums, crowded transit hubs and fan fests.

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In an extraordinary public display of administration infighting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate foreign relations committee on June 2 that he was wresting back control of U.S. contributions to an international vaccine consortium — Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance — from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vaxxer entourage. It was time, Rubio announced brusquely, to “re-engage” with Gavi, which was established in 2000 and takes the lead in vaccinating roughly 60 percent of the world’s children.

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The Trump administration has imposed some very tough measures in response to the hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks, despite the president's past history of criticizing COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic.

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Jennifer Nuzzo and Craig Spencer are both quoted in this article:

WASHINGTON (AP) — While millions of soccer fans cheer or groan over World Cup matches spanning North America, health officials will be on high alert for germs.

A heat wave may be the most obvious health threat. But infectious diseases can spread in a crowd, and experts are set to scrutinize wastewater, hospital visits, even social media for any signs that an outbreak might be brewing.

Measles, one of the most contagious diseases, is among the top concerns, sparking a warning this week from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO. With a nearly six-week stretch of packed stadiums, bars and tourist sites in 16 cities, officials are on the lookout for a long list of infections, from the stomach bug norovirus to mosquito-borne dengue fever.

In Kenya today, protests erupted for a second time in as many weeks. Residents are upset about a quarantine facility that the U.S. is setting up in the town of Nanyuki in the central part of the country about 120 miles from the capital, Nairobi.

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The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the largest mass gathering event in U.S. history. More than five million tickets have been sold across three countries and 16 cities over 39 days, dwarfing the 3.4 million total attendance at the 2022 World Cup. President Trump championed the hosting bid, created a White House task force for the World Cup that he chairs and accepted FIFA’s inaugural “Peace Prize” at the draw in December. Yet the federal government allocated $625 million for World Cup law enforcement and security, and zero for public health.

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With millions of soccer fans and tourists set to travel to 11 U.S. cities hosting the World Cup in the coming weeks, public health officials are wary of potential risks from infectious diseases, such as the Ebola outbreak racing through Central Africa.

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The Ebola outbreak that's raging in Africa could rival the outbreak that hit West Africa a decade ago, resulting in upwards of 20,000 cases and 4,000 deaths within the next three months alone.

These projections appear in new analyses from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which modeled just how widespread the current outbreak could get.
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An outbreak of Ebola disease is sweeping through Central Africa and it has the World Health Organization very concerned it could spread to other parts of the world. Watch here to learn more and find out What’s Going On.

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The Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could grow to 20,000 cases or more, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow the spread, according to a new analysis by U.S. health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a range of scenarios generated by computer models Friday, spanning from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. If accurate, a worst-case scenario could approach the worst Ebola outbreak in history, the West Africa epidemic in 2014-2016 — which resulted in more than 28,000 reported cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

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As of Friday, there have been at least 63 deaths and 397 confirmed cases of Ebola in Central Africa, according to health officials.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, joined 12 News at 4 Friday to share more about the recent outbreaks of both Ebola and the hantavirus.

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Thousands of tourists are set to descend upon Southern New England for the World Cup amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, a reality that has some Americans concerned.

But in a briefing from the Brown Pandemic Center, led by Craig Spencer, a Brown professor who treated Ebola patients in Africa in 2014, top scientists asserted the deadly virus should not be a major concern for the United States.

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The U.S. plan to respond to the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak just experienced a serious setback.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s High Court extended its order to block the proposed U.S. quarantine center in Kenya for U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola in the unfolding outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

Healthcare officials in the US, including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, on June 1 warned Congress against adopting a proposed policy to treat Americans exposed to Ebola in Kenya or countries in the European Union.

As natural outbreaks, laboratory accidents and the deliberate misuse of biological agents converge into an increasingly complex threat environment, Africa’s ability to prevent, detect and respond will depend on a sustained investment in the people capable of doing so.

By the time Craig Spencer was checking his temperature twice a day, President Trump had already spent the summer railing against bringing home American aid workers who contracted ebola in west Africa.

“People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” Trump wrote at height of the last outbreak 12 years ago. “Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

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By the time African health officials confirmed the world’s latest Ebola outbreak, the epidemic had already spilled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into neighboring Uganda. Within two days, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern. Less than two weeks later, the potential case count has risen past 1,000, including more than 230 deaths, and 10 other African countries have been designated at risk of being swept into the crisis.

When Craig Spencer contracted Ebola while working in Guinea during the West African outbreak in 2014, he was already back in the United States when he first developed symptoms. He credits the treatment he got at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for his survival.

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The Trump administration is building a quarantine and treatment center in Kenya for Americans affected by the Ebola outbreak, instead of bringing them home.

The White House on Wednesday confirmed that the US was setting up a facility in Kenya for Americans to quarantine after Ebola exposure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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The deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Public health researcher and Ebola survivor Dr. Craig Spencer joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss the need for urgent international action for what could become the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever.
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A new drug candidate could help treat measles, croup and other related viral diseases that cause contagious and life-threatening respiratory infections, Georgia State University researchers say.

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In past outbreaks, Americans exposed to the virus were sent home to be treated in state-of-the-art facilities. The Trump administration has already flown some U.S. citizens to Europe for treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been left "decimated" by various policy changes over the last year, weakening its ability to respond to a growing Ebola outbreak, experts have told Newsweek.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Less than three weeks from the first FIFA World Cup match, public health experts say they are on high alert for outbreaks of infectious diseases.

"When you are bringing potentially 5 to 7 million fans from over 100 different countries together, the chances that you bring new diseases that are not typically present in the U.S. into the U.S. does increase," Brown University associate professor of epidemiology Dr. William Goedel told NBC 10 in an interview.

When Georgia Lagoudas testified in front of the Rhode Island State legislature, lawmakers in the packed, poorly ventilated room were restless and unfocused.

The room had already exceeded near-toxic carbon dioxide levels set by the US federal occupational health agency. At 6,000 CO2 parts per million, breathing air can lead to fatigue, headaches, reduced cognitive function, and nausea.

Two deadly outbreaks that could threaten Americans are unfolding simultaneously—Ebola in one part of the world, hantavirus in another—with mortality rates of 25 to 50 percent and 38 percent, respectively, and no approved vaccines or treatments for either. For now, what are most alarming are not the outbreaks themselves but the slow and uncoordinated responses by the institutions that Americans rely on to keep them safe, including the U.S. government and the World Health Organization. If the world cannot properly handle known threats that it has contained before, then it is dangerously unprepared for the next novel one.

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Jeffery Taubenberger, an influenza researcher named last year as acting director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has “stepped down from his position,” Senator Tammy Baldwin (D–WI) revealed at a Senate hearing today on the budget for its parent institution, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Trump administration officials, confronted by overlapping outbreaks of Ebola and the hantavirus, have taken a more aggressive approach to locking down potentially exposed people than in past outbreaks, surprising many public health experts.

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As soon as I heard about the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I knew it was going to be catastrophic.

On Friday, the D.R.C. reported 246 suspected cases. Most Ebola outbreaks end before they get that big. The same day, reports emerged that someone had died of Ebola hundreds of miles away in Kampala, Uganda’s most populous city. Less than a week after it was first declared, this is already the third-largest Ebola outbreak in history.

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A deadly Ebola outbreak is continuing to spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, with officials on Tuesday saying there were more than 600 confirmed and suspected cases and more than 100 suspected deaths.

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The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Tuesday that the World Health Organization (WHO) was “a little late” in identifying the deadly Ebola outbreak in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

On Tuesday, Rubio told reporters: “The lead is obviously going to be CDC [Centers for Disease Control] and the World Health Organization, which was a little late to identify this thing unfortunately.”

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As health workers and humanitarian groups rush to try and contain an Ebola outbreak spreading through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a former UK government minister has warned the outbreak should be "a wake-up call" about the danger of cutting UK and US aid.

More than 100 people have died in DRC and cases have spread to neighbouring Uganda, with Rwanda and South Sudan now on high alert.

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Dr. Craig Spencer, who was infected with Ebola when treating patients in an outbreak in 2014 , tells ABC News he is “certain” the current outbreak is “much bigger” than what current numbers show.

"My biggest concern about this outbreak is that we learned way too much way too quickly for this to be anything but really bad,” Spencer said.

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The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arrived at its last stop Monday. Now the waiting begins.

The diagnosis of a strain of the Andes strain of hantavirus — an infection that’s fatal in about 40% of cases — on a ship carrying people from roughly two dozen countries has given public health officials around the globe their first major test in controlling contagion since the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries are choosing different strategies to monitor potentially exposed passengers and stop the spread of the disease and to communicate with a nervous public anxious that the virus may have come closer to home.

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Health officials are racing to contain a rapidly expanding outbreak of Ebola in Africa. At least 116 suspected deaths and more than 300 other cases have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Uganda. The CDC says an American medical missionary has contracted the disease. Amna Nawaz discussed more with Dr. Craig Spencer, who contracted Ebola during a 2014 outbreak.

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Angela Perryman, an American passenger exposed to the deadly hantavirus on a cruise ship this month, expected a short stay at a special quarantine facility in Nebraska after her arrival last week.

On Monday, after making plans to depart, she received a federal order requiring her to stay for at least two more weeks. Health officials said they would contact law enforcement if she tried to leave.

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The World Health Organization has declared an outbreak of Ebola virus in Africa a global health emergency. NPR's A Martinez asks Brown University's Dr. Craig Spencer what doctors are facing.

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The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Saturday due to the rapid spread of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Ebola causes severe hemorrhagic fever and is often fatal. There’s no approved vaccine for the strain of Ebola responsible for the current outbreak, known as the Bundibugyo variant. The WHO said in a statement that the outbreak is potentially much larger “than what is currently being detected and reported.”

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By the time health officials confirmed new Ebola infections in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last week, the total number of suspected cases meant the outbreak ​was already one of the largest on record.

A series of challenges and missteps delayed detection, two Congolese officials familiar with the response told Reuters, allowing the disease to spread unde
tected into ‌rebel-held territory in the east and across the border to the capital of Uganda.

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The World Health Organization has declared a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a public health emergency of international concern. This is the most serious designation short of a pandemic emergency, which was how COVID-19 was classified.
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The World Health Organization declared a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda to be a "public health emergency of international concern" on Sunday.

However WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed in a statement it "does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency" and advised countries against closing their borders.
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The World Health Organization declared on Saturday that the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda was a global health emergency.

The announcement was made a day after Africa’s leading public health authority reported that an outbreak in a province in the northeast of the country was linked to dozens of suspected deaths.

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